Cycling on pavements

Letters in our local papers often complain about people cycling on pavements.  Counter letters from cyclists claim they have to because of the dangers of cycling on the road.
The thing I find most interesting about this is the attitudes shown by the cyclists involved.  They appear to think they have an absolute right to break the law if they can justify themselves - they don't consider that pedestrians have a right to walk down the street in complete safety.  The cyclists may consider they're in danger from car traffic and move on to the pavements, but where do the pedestrians go if they consider they're in danger from the cyclists?
This attitude isn't unique to cyclists.  Car drivers seem to think they have a right to speed and park on double yellows.  Young people think under age drinking and sex is perfectly acceptable.  Narcotics use seems accepted by sectors of society.

What is so corrosive of society is not so much the actual offences, but the attitude that it's OK to ignore laws that an individual finds inconvenient.  That's bound to cause offence to other members of the community who will then use that behaviour as a justification to commit other offences, or maybe as a justification to assault or otherwise attack the original offenders.  If we all want to live in anarchy that's fine, and if everyone could agree on what's acceptable without a legal system and enforcement anarchy would work.

Talking to people, the individuals holding these attitudes often query whether anyone actually minds about their illegal behaviour.  It's quite clear from local newspapers' letter sections that people mind very much.  People don't complain directly to the offenders about illegal and anti social behaviour because of the climate of fear we live in.  You're very likely to be told to F*** off if you politely ask an offender to desist, I have quite a bit of personal experience of that!  I've also been told by professionals not to interfere as it's possible I may get stabbed.  Not surprising then that people cycling on pavements get the impression nobody wishes to complain about their behaviour.

If it's allowed to continue, the type of offences that people will think OK and self justify will creep up.  My car had various parts stolen and vandalised some years ago.  The thief was eventually caught, but he was not ordered either to return the parts or compensate me.  (Who says crime doesn't pay).  I took the trouble to investigate a private prosecution to recover my losses.  His attitude was that he had no money, all his friends were doing the same, and that I wouldn't mind as I'd be insured - very similar attitudes to the criminal cyclists.

Ideally individuals need to think about what they're doing and the consequences if we all follow their example of picking and choosing which laws we wish to obey.  When people committing these type of offences are dealt with by the police, they often complain the police should be dealing with 'real' criminals.  If they stopped committing the 'minor' offences then the police could indeed get on with stopping more serious offences.

Given that a minority will be scofflaws, the authorities do need to have the occasional crackdown on particular offences to prevent the idea building up that an offence isn't ever enforced.  this attitude has certainly built up in the minds of cyclists.

My own opinion is that all law should be enforced.  It's OK saying there are limited resources, but if an officer is on patrol with no priority matters, it doesn't take much to hand a fixed penalty to a pavement cyclist.  I'd also say, and this applies to all offences, that if anyone continues to commit any offence repeatedly, the deterrent of the penalty is clearly not working and needs to be ramped up.  A six month prison sentence for littering may sound extreme, but if anyone continually ignores penalties handed out by the courts, even the most minor offence becomes contempt of court (and contempt for everyone else's rights) rather than simply littering.  Another issue is compensation.  Courts often refrain from issuing compensation orders because the criminals have no assets.  How come we can arrange for law abiding university students to rack up debts for when they have money, and we can't do the same for criminals.  even if there is insurance in place, the criminal should repay the cost of their criminality to the insurance company - in every case.